


Of Heroes and Halfas (and headaches)

by ItsyBitsyBatsySpider



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Danny Phantom, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/M, Hurt, No Smut, Not a lot though, PLEASE do, Platonic Relationships, Romantic Fluff, Some comfort, and a bunch of other shit, hope you guys like this, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-01 13:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsyBitsyBatsySpider/pseuds/ItsyBitsyBatsySpider
Summary: It was a recon mission.That was all it was. A normal recon mission that would have ended with the team running away from an explosion or something with a few cuts and bruises to show until it suddenly wasn’t.........or in other words, something bad happens to a certain acrobat and now Danny has to train a new halfa. He's gonna have a couple headaches for months to come.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i had this fic in my good docs account for months now. It was recommended by someone on tumblr, but sadly i dont remember who. So i edited it a little bit and now i'm posting it. I'm on the fence a bit about continuing it, so if you guys want more make sure to let me know. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!!!

It was a recon mission. 

That was all it was. A normal recon mission that would have ended with the team running away from an explosion or something with a few cuts and bruises to show, until it suddenly wasn’t. 

If Robin, Dick, knew what was going to happen later that day, on that mission, he wondered to himself if he still would’ve taken it. It had begun simple enough, with Batman coming to Mount Justice and giving the team a debrief… 

…………………. 

“It will be strictly recon. No interaction. Get in, get out, and report back as soon as possible. You will be heading into a new Cadmus facility that just opened up. And with the previous history of Cadmus, you will be going in and finding out everything you can about it.” The Bat turned to the young protege’s lined up behind him. “

“Is that understood?” Batman’s gravelly voice echoed throughout the mountain. 

“Yeah, yeah, so just the normal stuff then?” Kid Flash snarked. 

Batman glared at the young speedster, who gulped. He still could never get used to that glare.

“Yes. We understand.” Kaldur said, sending a look to Kid. “Do we know what they are researching?”

“More clones?” Robin asked. 

“Strangely, no.” Batman said as he pulled up a slide on the holoscreen, which showed an image of green energy stored in a high tech containment unit, with data info appearing next to it. “It appears to be that Cadmus has decided to train it’s focus on something other than cloning. Thanks to a new investor, they’ve decided to widen their research. First with cloning, now with ecto-energy.”

“Ecto-energy?” Artemis asked. 

“Ectoplasm.”

“So like ghosts? Seriously? Cadmus believes in ghosts?” Kid joked, but when he saw the look on Bats’ face, he instantly shut up. “Oh.”

“When an organization as powerful as Cadmus decides to investigate and research something that may seem like fiction, it’s never a wise decision to write it off as that.” the shadowed man turned back to the screen. “Now suit up, you’re heading out in an hour.”

The screens shut off and Batman left, leaving the team behind to get ready. 

…………………….

The ride on the bioship was quiet for the most part as they flew to the small city of Amity Park, the place where the new facility was located. 

It was on the outskirts of the city, so hopefully the team wouldn’t arouse too much attention when a camouflaged alien ship flew over their skyscrapers. But before the team headed out, Batman had pulled Robin aside and talked to him about the suspicions he had about Amity Park and it’s ongoings.

There was an incident a few years ago when the entire city vanished off the face of the earth and hadn’t reappeared till a few days later. It was everywhere on the news. Nobody knew what happened and when the locals tried to explain to them that it was because of a ghost invasion, the reporters dismissed them and shrugged it off as some sort of hallucinogen. 

But a hallucinogen that could convince an entire city that ghosts exist and had taken over their town? Even that was a little far fetched in theory for the League. And besides, it didn’t explain why the city and everybody in it up and vanished.

But then again, you never know. There were even rumors about a strange superhero in the city, who fought off evil beings. But many of the rumors contradicted each other, some saying that he was a hero who fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves, and others said that he was a menace who needed to be contained. 

So before Robin left for the mission, Batman pulled him aside and told him to look out for anything suspicious, and to have the camera inside his mask recording the whole time.   
He was obviously gonna go over the footage later when he got back from their outing.

But for now, Wally was trying to make some jokes about the whole Cadmus-believing-in-ghosts thing, but he wasn’t able to get a laugh out of anyone. 

Maybe a smirk out of the young detective, but that was about it. 

…………………….

They had arrived at the coordinates just when Kid was trying to think up of a pun with ‘ectoplasm’. So far he had nothing, and the team was grateful for it. Hoping that he would never find one. 

They exited the bioship and activated their stealth suits while M’gann created the mental link with everyone. 

‘Link established’ her voice echoed inside of everyone’s heads. 

‘Good.’ Kaldur “said”. ‘Robin, M’gann see if you can sneak into the ventilation shafts and hack into the security measures and find us a way inside. Once you lower the defenses, give us a two minute window and then raise them again. Hopefully, it’ll seem like a blip on their security feeds and it’ll be ignored.’

‘On it.’ the teen hero said before disappearing into the forest they had landed in. 

M’gann pulled up her hood and instantly camouflaged with the shrubbery before following the Boy Wonder. She actually had no idea where Robin was, she couldn’t see him. The only way she knew where he was, was because of the mental link, guiding her to the place he was hiding. She followed the trail till she exited the forest and saw the bright outline of a small white building. 

Robin still nowhere to be seen.

‘There’s a vent on the west side of the building. That’s our entrance point. Think you can bust it open?’ Robin said. 

M’gann turned around and saw her teammate standing beside her, looking as if he was there the entire time. 

‘Oh, yeah’ the Martian replied. 

They turned and walked to the other side of the building, Robin keeping a lookout for the security cameras the whole time, telling when to move or when to stop, staying vigilant the entire time for henchmen with guns or any other kind of weapon. 

They finally found the vent on the west side of the building and M’gann raised her hand, telekinetically removing the screws that kept it in place. Once it was off and the vent was open, Robin pulled out his grapple gun and shot at the opening, pulling himself up to the vent while M’gann flew.

Once, inside the alien girl became visible again and Robin crawled forward a bit before stopping and pulling up the holoscreen on his gauntlets. Already hacking into the cameras and any other kind of security measures, the little Robin faces on the screen turning red to green in just a few moments. 

‘Alright, you guys are on the two minute timer.’

‘Copy that.’ the Atlantean replied.

Robin shut off his holoscreen and continued to crawl through the vent, M’gann following right behind him, and they tried to find an empty room to drop into. 

“Here.” the Martian whispered to the raven haired boy as they came up to another vent opening.

Robin took out what looked like to be the Bat equivalent of a swiss army knife and began to unscrew the bolts around the vent. Carefully removing them and opening the metal grate he dropped down onto the floor noiselessly while M’gann hovered over the floor before landing silently on the linoleum as well. Both holding their breaths, waiting for someone to barge into the room and demand who they were. When nothing happened, they relaxed. 

‘Let’s go’ He said. 

The door opened with ease and the two heroes slipped into the corridor without anyone knowing the wiser.

Robin pulled up the security footage on his gauntlets again, checking to see where the rest of the team was coming in. While he had put the footage on a loop for the guards, he actually had the live feed from the cameras, which showed Kid Flash and Superboy sneaking in from the roof and Kaldur and Artemis sneaking in through the backdoor. 

A smirk appeared on the boys face. 

‘Cameras coming back online in five, four, three, two, one.’   
The camera feed fritzed for a split second, signalling that Robin had lost his control over the cameras. He still had live footage, but he couldn’t do anything about it now. This Cadmus facility had better security than the first one. Which was surprising. 

‘Alright, now that the cameras are back online, we can’t afford to be seen by any of them.’ said their leader.

‘Got it.’ Wally remarked. 

‘Which means we can’t exactly meet up. We’re gonna have to investigate the floors on our own.’ Said Robin.

‘I agree.’ Kaldur said. 

‘Kid Flash and I have the third floor.’ Said Artemis. 

‘Me and Kaldur will take the first floor then.’ Said the clone.

‘And me and Robin have the second.’ Said M’gann.

‘Robin, think you can hack into the camera feeds again?’ The Atlantean asked.

‘Not really,’ Dick thought. ‘I have a live feed, but I can’t do much. This Cadmus facility has a lot more security measures than the last one. Probably because we were able to infiltrate that facility. The most I could do is delay the feed or maybe freeze it all together. But if I freeze it, I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to notice. We would have a few minutes at most.’

‘A few minutes is better than none.’ said the archer.

‘True. Alright then, freezing the feed in three, two, one…. Let’s go’

‘Alrighty’ Kid Flash thought before zooming from one room to another.

M’gann and Robin headed for the first door they saw and opened it to see that it was a lab of sorts. They shuffled through the papers and documents and Robin took samples of the strange green fluid they found in vials, going as fast as they could. They had no problems until suddenly red lights started flashing and wailing filled the air. Everyone heard Connor grunt in pain at the sound of the din. 

‘Uh, guys? Looks like they noticed.’ Kid said.

‘Yeah, kinda figured.’ Artemis snarked at the speedster.

Robin heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway and quickly pocketed the vials he had and pulled out two birdarangs in their place as M’gann shifted into camouflage mode again. Hiding by the sides of the doors, the two heroes held their breath, hoping that the guards would leave without knowing they were ever there. 

If only they had. 

“They’re in here!” one man shouted, his voice muffled. 

The door was suddenly kicked down with such a force that sent the door flying. A man dressed in all black, including a strange white visor that covered his face, entered the room, growling at the sight of the unwanted intruders. But before he could do anything, Robin jumped into action.

He kicked the man in the gut and punched the visor, shattering it.   
There were six guards total in the hallway, all dressed exactly the same as the first one, and they all had these strange looking guns in their hands. Robin noted that they were white with silver accents and a bright green tip, which glowed. 

Very strange guns indeed.

Robin threw the birdarangs, each hitting it’s intended mark, as M’gann came out from behind the wall, throwing three of the guards against the wall with the force of her mind.

“There it is!” One of the guards shouted as he raised his ‘gun’ at M’gann and began shooting like a madman. 

There is only one thing worse than a trained marksman, and that was a trigger-happy amatuer. 

Which this guard clearly was. Maybe he was new to the job and the it’s field, but it was obvious in the way that he held his gun that he was young and inexperienced. 

M’gann flew out of the way trying her best to avoid the shots that were fired at her. Putting all of her focus into her telekinesis and not getting shot. 

Meanwhile Robin stayed focused on the thugs before him, occasionally throwing a birdarang at their guns and knocking them out of the guards hands’. One of them was proving to be a nuisance, seeing as no matter how hard Robin hit him, he kept coming back up. The guard had been able to pin Robin’s arms to his side as he held him in a strong grip. And as Robin struggled to get out of it, the guard strained to say something to him.

“Why the hell are you helping that thing? It’s just using you. It doesn’t care about you at all. As soon as you lose your usefulness, it’ll kill you.” 

Robin headbutted the guard, breaking his visor, and revealing part of his face. The acrobat leaped away from the guard and slipped into a comfortable fighting stance. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” he hissed at the man. Not understanding why he would say such things about his team mate. 

“It’s a ghost you idiot kid. It’s only manipulating you for its own gain.” 

Robin shook his head and smirked. “You’re crazy.” He threw another birdarang at the man, who ducked out of the way, ran up to Robin, grabbed his arm, and threw him over his shoulder into the lab. 

When Robin landed, there was a sound of glass shattering and the feeling of something wet covering his whole body.   
‘Robin!’ M’gann yelled out in the mental link. 

Ugh, oh no. Robin thought to himself as he got up. 

The boy believed that he was covered in his own blood, but in reality, he had been thrown into the dozens of glass vials that held live ectoplasm. 

The Boy Wonder looked down at his arms to find the green goo covering his arms and a few cuts here and there, his blood mixing with the glowing substance. ‘That can’t be good.’ He thought to himself.

He turned up to look at his opponent whose eyes were blazing with ferocity, and a pair of escrima sticks clenched in his hands, sparking with electricity. 

Robin tried to move, picking himself up off of the ground and slipped into another fighting stance. Albeit, shakily. The man scowled. 

“You’re a fool, boy.” he growled. 

“NO!” M’gann shouted, throwing every guard against the wall and knocking them all unconscious, even the ones who were already down. 

Then everything seemed to slow down.

Dick watched as the guard hit the wall. 

He watched as his weapons, still sparking with electricity clatter to the floor. The sound echoing in his ears. 

Something’s going to happen. The boy wondered vaguely. His mind still hazy from being thrown into glass and being exposed to an unknown substance. 

He watched as they slowly rolled over to the growing pool of ectoplasm. Which he was still standing in. 

And he watched as time came to a crawl as the tip touch the pool, blue electricity meeting toxic green.

And in one split moment, everything went to hell. 

The last thing Dick remembered was the sound of screaming and the feeling of immense pain shooting through his body. It felt as if he was being pulled apart, pushed together, ripped to pieces, and being stitched back together again all at the same time. He vaguely heard the sound of someone yelling his name, but he couldn’t remember. He had been electrocuted before, by other villains, and he knew what it was supposed to feel like. 

But this time it was different. He knew it was. He just didn’t know how. 

The boy hero collapsed on the floor, his body still spasming. The last thing he remembered was feeling the warmth of someone’s arms wrap around him and a comforting presence filling his mind before being enveloped in darkness. 

………………………………...

M’gann didn’t know what she saw. 

Nor what to do. 

She could only watch in frozen horror as her friend was electrocuted. His screams tearing their way into her mind, and the alien girl knew in that moment that she would forever be haunted by the sound of those screams. 

He collapsed on the ground, his body still spasming from the shock, and the young Martian didn’t hesitate to rush to his aid. 

She casted aside the escrima sticks and knelt next to Robin, her knees and cape staining from the sticky ectoplasm on the ground, and wrapping her arms around the boy. She could feel the pain coming from him and so she entered his mind and took the pain away; replacing it with a blanket of numbness and putting him into a deep sleep. Hoping to every deity, both Martian and human, that it would take the pain away. Even if it was temporary. 

Tears pricked at M’gann’s eyes, but she willed them to remain there, she couldn’t lose focus now. Not when her friend needed her help. 

‘We need to get Robin out of here. Now.’ she said to the others. 

They had all heard and felt some of the pain that the Boy Wonder felt, and had all been shocked into silence. 

Wally most of all. 

Vaguely shaken out of their trance at the sound of M’gann’s ‘voice’, they began to make their way out. 

Except for Kid, who raced down to the second floor and reached the lab M’gann and his best friend were in. When he saw the pool of ectoplasm, the dried blood, and blackened skin on Robin, he felt like he was going to throw up. 

Who could ever see a beloved friend like this? 

“-id? Kid? Kid!” M’gann shouted at him! The speedster shaken out of his haze and his glassy eyes focused on the Martian girl.

“Get him back to the ship! Run as fast as you can!” Wally nodded and in a flash, Robin and Kid Flash were gone. Leaving M’gann by herself.

“Come on, buddy. Please stay with me.” Wally whispered to his friend as he ran through the building. 

He came across guards, but instead of fighting them and knocking them out, he ran between them. He couldn’t waste any time, not when his friend’s life was on the line. 

Soon enough, he was out of the pristine facility and in the dark forest once more. The familiar red ship came into the teen’s sight and Wally let out a small breath of relief. 

As if sensing the urgency of the situation, the ship opened its doors and released it’s camouflage, allowing Wally to rush inside. He placed Dick on a table that the organic entity had created, and kneeled down beside the table.  
Kid Flash waited for a few minutes praying that his friend was still alive when the rest of the team rushed in. 

In no time at all, the bioship was in the air, flying fast to Happy Harbour, Rhode Island and to Mount Justice.

………………..

 

While the rest of the team sat in their chairs, glancing over at Dick from time to time, Wally stood next to him the entire trip. 

He had taken off his cowl and sat down in a makeshift chair the ship had created, so that he wasn’t kneeling anymore. He just didn’t understand how this could’ve happened to his best friend. 

The redhead looked at Dick again, and finally began to register the changes that he hadn’t seen before.   
It was subtle, but other than the dried blood and ectoplasm sticking to his skin and the blackened areas around his mask, Dick’s normal pitch black hair had gained streaks of white in it.

It was an odd thing to see, for the young speedster was so used to his raven hair, and he expected to find other physical changes, yet nothing else did.

But if Wally knew anything about lab accidents, it was that usually appearances can be deceiving. He of all people should know this.

And if something did happen to Dick in that lab, Wally knew that no matter what, it was still his friend, and nothing would ever change between them. It was a vow that Wally took as he stared at his friend lying unconscious on the table. Tears threatening to fall and hands trembling as he gripped his ruly hair. 

The young speedster looked down at the ground, a loathed feeling of uselessness overcoming him as he sat before the unconscious boy, and he whispered an unheard prayer. 

“Please…..please, be okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick wakes up and Bruce makes a discovery. And a phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place post season 3 of Danny Phantom, no PP obviously, and in between episodes 19-24 of Young Justice season 1. Dick is 13 and Danny is 17 years old. 
> 
> And i also rewrote this chapter so many times, so if there's something confusing or repeated or anything like that, im sorry. I probably missed that. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!

Green was all Dick saw. He stared at the endless swirling abyss, his eyelids feeling heavy, as if anchors were weighing them down. 

His mind clouded with sleep and dizziness, Dick didn’t even think twice about where he was. All he wanted to do was sleep. 

Sleep in the emerald void. Alone. Forever

‘Huh, weird’ he thought to himself as he zoned out, looking into the green sky. 

The boy tried to move, much to his body’s dismay, his muscles aching all over, hurting like hell. It reminded him of the time he and Bruce did a full body workout in the Cave. He wasn’t able to move for the rest of the day and he was stuck icing his legs over and over. I guess that’s what you get when you’re the protege of Batman. 

Dick scoffed lightly at the memory and he closed his eyes again, wanting to see if he could sleep a little more, before they shot wide open. 

Struggling, and cursing loudly, the boy stood up, spinning around trying to process where he was. Green swirls and purple doors, with strange, luminescent islands floating everywhere. 

The young superhero brought his hand up to run it through his hair, but was surprised to see that his glove was different. Instead of it’s normal black, it was white! 

He yelped. And looked down to see if the rest of his uniform had changed as well, he gasped when he saw that it did. 

Instead of the familiar red, black, and yellow, Dick was greeted with icy blue, lavender purple, and greyish white. He looked like an ice superhero for Pete’s sake! This wouldn’t work at all in Gotham. 

Speaking of Gotham, or just places and cities in general, where on Earth was he!?

This definitely wasn’t Earth and there were no stars or moon or sun, so he couldn’t be on another planet. He wasn’t underwater, since he could still breathe, and he wasn’t underground. Could this be his mind? His consciousness? Maybe this was similar to the time he and the Team lost their memories in the desert and M’gann reignited their memories. 

But that couldn’t be it. Because M’gann wasn’t there and this didn’t look like the same place as last time. 

So where was he? 

“Hello?” He called out. Thinking that there wasn’t much else for him to do. 

If he was going to find out where he was, he would need to find somebody or some kind of civilization. But when no one answered his call, Dick tried again. 

“Hello!? Is anyone there!” 

The sound of hissing replied to his call. And what once was a barren land(?) now became infested with glowing beings. 

Some took the shape of humans with fangs and tails or claws while others were monsters and some were indecisive blobs. But the one thing they had in common was their glowing eyes and hostility towards Robin. A few began circling around him hissing and whispering in his ear. 

“AnOtHeR oNe?” one of the monsters said. 

“WhY iS tHeRe MoRe?”

“aS iF tHrEe WaSn’T eNoUgH aLrEaDy.”

“gO hOmE!” they creatures hissed and screamed at Robin. 

The boy’s heart hammered in his chest and a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. He was too gripped with fear to do anything; all of Bruce’s lessons going out the window, just to be replaced with absolute terror. 

“MaYbE iT’s A gOoD oMeN?” 

“DoN’t Be A fOoL!! SiNcE wHeN hAvE wE hAd pEaCe SiNcE tHe FiRsT hAlFa CaMe!?!?”

“YeS! iT wOuLd Be BeTtEr To SeNd HiM hOmE!” 

Robin clamped his gloved hands over his ears, hoping to anyone that the whispers would stop.   
Oh, please let them stop. Something hammered into his chest, causing him to lose his breath and struggle for air. Yet when he looked up to see his attacker, none of the creatures had moved. 

He was hit by nothing. 

“gO bAcK!” One called. Another strike. Robin was thrown back onto the cold ground, gasping for hair.

“Go BaCk!!” The pressure was now constant and he couldn’t breathe. 

“GO BACK!!” 

Eyes snapping open, a scream escaping his lips and a flash of blue filling his vision, Dick was thrown back onto a mattress and the sound of shouting and shattering rang in his ears. The boy didn’t move for a moment, muscles tense and eyes clamped shut. But when he opened them, he saw that he was not in fact in the Green Place anymore. 

But in the Infirmary. 

Back at Mount Justice.

With people around him. 

A woman in a black leotard with fishnets, a green man with a red X across his chest, and a familiar cloaked figure all surrounded the bed; and Canary was holding two metal plates in her hands, which resembled irons. Defibrillators. 

“Dick?” 

The boy stared at the heroes, not completely registering that they were there. He was still a bit lost from the nightmare and was having some trouble connecting to reality. His heart still racing from the nightmare and all he wanted to do was forget about it. 

If it even was a nightmare to begin with. It had all felt so real. He shut his eyes. 

“Dick. Listen to me. You’re at the Mountain. You’re in the infirmary.” Once he heard the oh-so familiar voice, he began to relax. Hearing the voice of his mentor and surrogate father began to calm him down. 

“I’m here. And you are safe.” 

Dick cracked one of his eyes open, and a sigh of relief came from him. 

He let out a shaky breath and finally tried to calm down his heart. Nausea overcoming the boy, Robin felt like he was going to be sick, but a deep breath prevented that. He was NOT going to be throwing up in the med bay. 

Dick lied back down on the bed, only to find, that he wasn’t even on the mattress. A barely audible and confused “What?” came from the boy as he looked down, and saw that he wasn’t even on the bed in the first place.

He was floating a couple of inches off of the mattress, the blankets draping off of him, and he glanced upward, at the adults in the room. “What’s going on?”   
Manhunter turned around and walked to the other end of the room, somehow picking up a mirror. How did that get there? 

The alien came back to the bedside and offered it to the boy. “Perhaps you should see for yourself.”

Dick looked into the mirror, hesitant of what he would find, and gasped. 

His hair had patches of pure white and grey with some of his black hair barely poking through. His once pinkish tan skin was now deathly pale, and his eyes...oh man his eyes. They both glowed with an unnatural piercing light, one acidic green and the other an icy blue. 

Seeing his eyes, that neon green, was all it took to remind him of his nightmare.

It had been so long since Dick had a panic attack. He couldn’t remember the last time he had one this horrible. But his heart began to hurt it was beating so fast. He was breathing in so quickly, but he wasn’t getting any air. He needed to move but his limbs were frozen, he wanted to cry and speak, but he felt as if some invisible being was clenching his vocal chords shut, preventing Dick from asking for help. 

He stared, transfixed on the green in the reflection. He wanted it gone, he wanted it destroyed, he didn’t want to see it anymore. It was all Dick could focus on. 

What happened next happened all too fast for Robin to process. 

There was another flash of blue and the sound of glass shattering reverberated inside his ears once more. 

He heard a high pitched ringing and his hands trembled as he clutched the bed sheets. He was still hovering above the bed. 

“Oh my God! What was that!?” Canary cried out. (hehe, pun)

There was an enormous hole in the wall. Where the mirror had once been, was now shattered glass and melted plastic and there was an enormous hole in the wall. Where the mirror was aligned. Drywall, paint, wood, and the concrete, was all gone, with scorch marks decorating the edges around the hole. A burning smell remained in the air. 

Dick stared at the wall in shock. Had he done that? “I… I don’t know.” he mumbled. 

“Bruce?” Canary aske, but the billionaire was still looking at the wall, his face expressionless and unreadable. “I’m not entirely sure either.” 

“It appears, that the young Robin, may have developed powers.” Manhunter said. Much to the shock of the people in the room. 

Canary gaped while Batman continued to stare at the wall, and then he turned his gaze to the ceiling. Dick followed his eye and let his jaw fall open. There was an identical scorch mark/hole on the ceiling above them. Right on the spot where Dick would be looking at if he was lying on his back. 

“What on earth does that mean? How did that happen?” the blonde began saying as she walked over and began to inspect Robin. “Did you get hurt?”

“No, no I’m fine.” he said. “But...how could I have gotten powers?” 

“It may have something to do with your accident at the Cadmus facility. I would not be surprised if that is where it started.” J’onn stated. 

“I thought I told you not to enter this room?” Bruce growled. Canary rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Well, when one of the our protoge’s vitals start dropping you would usually run into the room to see if they’re still alive.” 

The Bat of Gotham stared at the blonde and slowly pulled his cowl back on. “Please tell me that you were able to send the rest of the Team home. Or at least to their rooms.” 

Canary nodded. “Yes, I was actually. It was easier today than it was when they first brought Robin here.”

“Good.” 

“Wait.” Dick said all of a sudden. His heart still fluttering, but the initial panic gone. “How long have I been out?” 

Canary shared a look with Batman, one that Dick knew couldn’t have meant a good thing. She cleared her throat and spoke. 

“A week. Nearly two. The Team came back ten days ago and you were unconscious. You had been gravely injured during the mission, having been electrocuted. Or at least, that’s what M’gann told us. You’ve been here ever since. You nearly d-” the woman began to say before Batman cut her off with a grunt. Robin knew that from anywhere. 

“What? What else happened?” 

Bruce glanced up at his ward and sighed. “Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about.” 

Canary got the most angry look on her face at the words Bruce said. J’onn watched the exchange silently from the other side of the room, unmoving. 

“Can I talk to you for a moment, outside.” she hissed out, and the normally calm and collected woman stormed out of the room. Bruce turned to Dick, the impassive look on his face as always.

“Put on your suit. We’re going home.” 

Dick nodded and began to pull off the covers as Batman walked out of the room and following Canary. He listened carefully as he heard the foot falls of both Bruce and Canary’s footsteps walk quite a ways away and turn into a hallway. And Dick knew he shouldn’t have been able to hear their whispered conversation from that far away as they began to speak. 

“What the hell was that?! Nothing!? Nothing happened today!? Bats he DIED!!” 

Dick sucked in a gasp of air. J’onn turned to look at him, but Dick gave him an uneasy chuckle and tried to listen in on the rest of the conversation. 

“He was lying there on that cot for an hour and he wasn’t breathing. There was no heartbeat Bruce. He was GONE.” 

“But he’s breathing now. And he has a heartbeat. That’s what matters. I will look into it later, but there is no need for him to worry about something in the past.” 

Canary laughed cruelly. “The past. You mean twenty minutes ago?”

A chill went down Robin’s spine. That’s when he had his dream. The hammering on his chest, the defibrillators, it all made sense now; he died!! He went to the afterlife, and came back. 

Dick brought a hand up and ran it through his hair, his breathing starting to pick up pace. This situation just became a whole lot more stressful. If it wasn’t stressful enough already. 

“Bruce,” the woman said, her voice serious. “Whatever is happening, is not normal. And this is coming from me. Just… don’t keep things from him. It’s only going to make this situation worse. And yes, he probably does have powers, but it’s none that we’ve dealt with before. You saw what happened to his hair and eyes. I’ve never seen a change like that before. Something happened and we need to know exactly what.” 

It was quiet for a moment and Dick was tense with apprehension, waiting on Bruce’s response. 

“I’ll figure this out. Alone. Then I’ll tell him. Don’t say anything to him, he doesn’t need to know what happened today.” 

The white haired boy heard footsteps and rushed to put on the rest of his suit, noting that there were a few strange colors here and there. A few purple, blues, and whites. But Dick ignored it, chalking it up to stress. There’s no way his costume would be changes colors on it’s own. 

And he died today, as he just learned. 

Batman walked into the room just as Robin began to put on the suit. He had been so entranced by the conversation that he forget to actually get dressed and out of the infirmary gown. 

“Let’s go. I’ll alert the Team that you’re okay.”

“I wouldn’t advise that.” Manhunter said all of a sudden. Bats turned to look at the Martian. It was the first time he spoke in a while. 

“And why is that?” Batman challenged. 

J’onn crossed his arms. “Because don’t you think that after the ordeal Robin has been through, he should get some rest? I do not think it would be a wise idea to have him moving so soon. He should at least stay the night. It is quite late already and I believe it would be a good idea for the both of you to rest.”

The Dark Knight of Gotham pondered on this for a moment, before finally saying “Yes.” in that gruff voice of his. He walked over to the bedside table and took Robin’s mask from the drawer within it. 

“At least put this on.” he said as he offered it to his sidekick. Dick looked at the mask and hesitated, before taking it gingerly. The edges of the mask had begun to turn white, but that was probably due to the electricity. He put on the familiar domino mask, feeling a sense of safety overcome him. He hadn’t realized how naked he felt not wearing his hero mask inside the Mountain. Batman seemed to relax a little bit, before straightening his spine. 

“Excuse me, I some matters to attend to.” 

Which was Bruce Code for ‘I’m-gonna-do-some-research-or-some-shit-like-that’. He ruffled the messy hair on Dick’s head with a gloved hand and said in a low voice, “Get some rest okay.”  
Dick just nodded in response and began to pull the covers back on, noticing how he was still floating over the bed. ‘This is gonna take some getting used to’ he thought to himself. 

………………………..

A couple of hours later, Bruce sat in a private office, surrounded by holo-screens, with anything and everything related to Amity Park, Illinois pulled up in front of him. 

Most of what he found was relatively useless. Just a bunch of articles on random things, but there were quite a few newspaper headlines about ghost attacks and their phantom hero(hehe, another pun). 

Bruce tried to find a reliable source on the whereabouts of the mysterious being, but the best thing he could find was a fan chat room on the ‘official’ fan page website. Dozens of teenagers across the town talking about ghost conspiracy theories, sightings, and trying to figure out who Phantom was in his past life. 

A lot of the ‘evidence’ seemed weak and most of it ended with dead ends, but there was this one user, who kept coming back and telling everyone the ‘true’ identity of Phantom. He claimed that the entity was actually a kid that went to high school with him, and that said-kid was part-ghost. This had gotten the Bat’s attention. 

He had heard some crazy things in life, but being part ghost? That was a new one. However, the symptoms that Robin was showing were identical to some of the powers that the ghosts possessed. Floating and shooting bolts of energy were the most common powers. 

Batman glanced at another screen, this one playing the recorded video from Dick’s mask. Once Robin had made it back to the Mountain, and when they were both alone, Bruce swiped the mask and downloaded all of it’s content. He wanted to know what exactly happened, and he wasn’t going to truly find out from anyone else. Whatever happened to Robin to change him so drastically was on that footage, and Bruce was going to comb through every second of it. 

He had gotten to the part when the guard was being thrown across the room, and Bats watched as the escrima sticks rolled across the floor and touched the ectoplasm. That’s when the footage ended. The accident had messed with the recording and that was all Bruce was able to get. He saw the blood mixed with the glowing chemicals, and he saw the electricity shoot towards his ward, he finally knew what had caused this change, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Which is why he was looking for Phantom. If there was anyone out there who could understand what his son was going through, it would be the ghost. 

So when he saw that strange lead, saying that Phantom was really a kid at the local high school, he followed up on it. 

Daniel Fenton, known to his friends as Danny, had been attending Casper High for three years. He turned seventeen three months ago. At the beginning of Daniel’s high school career, he was actually a very good student. He attended his classes, did well in tests and exams, he should’ve been able to go to a nice college. But then the same time the ghosts appeared in Amity, did his grades drop. 

Unexplained absences, poor grades, and strange disappearances in the middle of class. Not to mention the file containing the information that he was banned to handle anything fragile that was school property. He kept dropping them apparently and costing the school lots of money. 

And then there was the age thing. 

Sure it wasn’t uncommon that a boy should grow during his high school years, and in fact Daniel did grow quite a lot in the three years he had been at Casper. However, the thing that caught Bruce’s attention was that both Daniel and Phantom grew at the exact same rates. They both aged the same and they even had the same body figure and hair. The only differences was the hair and eyes. 

Which glowed a toxic green. And his hair a pure white. 

Too much like Dick’s. 

And wherever Phantom was, Bruce learned that Daniel was always either close by or at the same location just moments before he appeared. So either Phantom was stalking Daniel or, the more likely option, Daniel Fenton was in fact the hero Phantom. 

Bruce was just doing a sweep of security footage in a mall when he saw the ghost boy fly behind a pillar. Two rings of light travelling up and down his body, replacing the entity with the seventeen year old Daniel. The Bat smiled. 

He went back over to the chatroom and found the user who had given him the lead. Sending a vague message. ‘Thank you, WesWeston95’, and went over to another screen. Shutting down the rest of the tabs he inserted the number of the teen and waited silently for him to pick up. 

…………………..

“Tucker! Why on earth do you have an account on the Danny Phantom Fanpage? It makes no sense!” Danny yelled at his friend, who just shrugged in reply. They had decided to hang that afternoon since Sam was still away on some trip in Metropolis; some sort of event was being held there and her parents dragged her along. So they got together to do some homework and play Doom. 

“What? I think it’s funny. The only reason I joined was because everyone at school was talking about it and I wanted to see what ridiculous things they had to say about you. Did you know that Wes is still trying to convince people that Phantom goes to our school? It’s hilarious.” 

“Yeah, well I don’t care.”

“There was another theory that you were actually a kid from the 1960’s who died in a fire.”

Danny scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.” 

“I know right. But then there was another member today, who asked some weird things.”

Danny turned to look at his friend. Willingly forgetting about his homework for a moment. “Really? What were they asking?” 

Tucker shrugged, not glancing up from his PDA. “Stuff like, where they could find you or if anyone knew where you showed up the most. It sounded like a ghost hunter. But I’m not too sure.” 

The ghost boy stayed silent for a moment, thinking about the user. If it was a ghost hunter, then he would have to be extra careful. It seemed like they were a lot more competent than the others from a few years ago, but you never know. 

“But,” Tucker began saying, “Their username was something stupid like ‘Bats’, so it may not be anything to worry about.” Danny hummed in response. 

“Well, I guess we’ll see." The room was silent for a few moments longer, before the inevitable was asked. 

"Hey, do you wanna play Doom?” the halfa asked, just moments before his phone started ringing. Danny groaned and walked over to his bed, where his phone was charging, and checked the number. He didn’t recognize it, it was probably a telemarketer. 

“Oh, hey Tuck, I got another scam caller, what should I say this time?” 

Tucker smiled. Recently the pair had started saying weird and pop culture referenced lines when answering the phone to telemarketers. One time Danny just scream “WHAT!!” through the phone and hung up. It was hilarious to the both of them. 

“Ooh, you should do ‘Elf’!” 

“Oh yeah! Totally!” The phone continued to ring and Danny motioned for Tucker to stay silent, even though he was already snickering through his hands. 

He answered the phone, and took a deep breath. “Hello, this is Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?” 

The phone stayed silent and Danny tried not to laugh. Tucker watched on in curiosity, both of them waiting for the callers reaction. 

What they didn’t expect, was a serious voice coming from the other line. 

 

“Daniel Fenton. We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, that happened. The first words Danny ever says to Batman is a pop culture reference, how fitting is that? Comments and kudos are always appreciated and i hope to see you all in the next chapter!! 
> 
> Also, i would appreciate any corrections. It's been a while since ive seen YJ and i really need to get back into it.

**Author's Note:**

> like i said at the beginning, if you guys want more, please just tell me. I'm on the fence about continuing it so if you want another chapter, let me know! 
> 
> Have a great day/night and criticism is always appreciated.


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